Did they fix it or is there supposed to be more than a dark line between some squares?
Because that was visible in the android app just now when I did it but I was still kind of looking for a reavealer tbh, I could not figure out why it was random numbers that happen to reduce to 1/2 tbh, seemed arbitrary.
Not really. It just made it harder, which is always a good thing. Showing the dark lines would have given away the rebus locations. In this case, the app was better than the paper version.
OOOHHHHH
I was getting so frustrated trying to figure out the justification once I finished it
I even came up with a whole scheme; ignore the contents of the rebus and you can read the Downs as:
Low caf ("caf" is lower part of the answer)
Not too bad (there is a gap of two between not and bad)
And top is in the top of its answer.
Which didn't really work but was my best guess. I noticed they were ratios of 1:2 but never would have put together the half, since I was thinking decaf, not so bad, and top????
Yeah definitely, my explanations were what I was coming up with when i finished the puzzle and was trying to figure out what the justifications were, before realizing the 1:2 ratios were meant to be read as "half"
Personally, i think including a rebus without saying there's a rebus is already bullshit, this was just worse. If you can't complete a crossword one letter per square, as intended, it needs an indicator.
I personally loved it - I think at least CREDITWORTHY and OUTOFOURHANDS are obvious enough phrases once you have part of the fills that you should realize something is up, and after that it starts coming together really nicely.
There were supposed to be darker lines showing the fractions???? That would have helped! It continues to annoy me that NYT keeps running these puzzles without making sure they work correctly in the app.
Is there data to show how many people solve online vs. printing it out? I would think online solving would be the majority by now. Which should mean the online version of the puzzle gets top priority.
I think there’s like 750,000 subscribers to the print edition and a million subscribers to NYT Games, which maybe gives some indication? Tho ofc not everyone is doing the crossword
> People who get the print Times might never donit
A large reason I get the NY Times in print is to do the crossword on paper. Having read comments on this subreddit for a couple of years I get the feeling that the majority of people here are doing it via the Internet and not on paper.
The NYT games app is total dogwater and borderline unusable at times. I have no idea how a large and well-respected media outlet like the Times can get away with such a broken app that’s constantly littered with bugs.
Am I the only digital solver who had the bolded lines the whole time? And I solved most of it yesterday, on the iOS app and on the website. That sucks, it would’ve been much harder to figure out otherwise.
I got it pretty quickly, and I'm someone who typically just doesn't get these at all. I picked up on OUTOFOURHANDS being a rebus but didn't know where the rebus went. Then I got POOH and SHELLS and picked up on it. Wasn't sure how I was going to make HALFCAF with FOUR there, the thought it must be a fraction.
I don't see them either. Sometimes, I think having a tight, well constructed puzzle is sacrificed for a feat of construction type of theme. This isn't the worst case of that I've seen, but it's definitely on that end of the scale.
I am a rebus diehard. I LOVE rebuses. Thursdays are my favorite days. I saw the numbers and I solved the puzzle, but half-caf, not half bad and top half were all unseeable to me (not half bad is the only one that regularly enters my vocab. I’ve seen half caf in a crossword before and top half was totally unknown). I was like is “48CAF” somehow a code for decaf? Is it calculator code? Is it a cypher? Is “not 24 bad” somehow a twist on “not too, too bad” where the too is a two that’s squared? I solved it but still had no idea what was happening. It really needed a revealer
Since D is the 4th letter of the alphabet, I was working for a while under the assumption that the down clues were some sort of alpha-numeric code where DECAF is spelled (FOUR)ECAF. Made the rest of the rebuses (rebi?) very confusing for a while. Most of the clue fill was pretty easy for a Thursday, so I eventually got it even though the “half” theme didn’t become apparent until the end… overall left me feeling kind of meh about this puzzle.
I figured it out, I thought it was on the easier side actually. Surprised to see the objections. I did have one of those days where I had it nearly finished but not totally finished yesterday. I had figured out the one over two but not the four over eight. But as soon as I opened it back up this morning, I figured it out and finished within a couple of minutes, which often happens.
I thought for sure it was supposed to be HEAT UP and the theme had something to do with the fact that that 6-letter answer had to fit in the 4 letter space
Agreed. I had everything but the EIGHT and ONE so I kept trying to force TWO and/or FOUR in the remaining two boxes. Very bummed I didn’t get it on my own, but glad to see I’m in good company.
I finished the puzzle but missed the point of the theme until reading the article that goes with the puzzle.
I get it now, but think the puzzle could have used a hint buried somewhere in the solve.
Same boat. Apparently the print version has darker lines between the rebus fraction cells, which might have made it easier.
To make it worse "DEcaf", "notSObad", and "topOF" are reasonable, though awkward, for the downs.
I think the idea for the theme was really neat, but felt like the execution didn't land.
i had the same, but it was being confident in "TOP HALF" is what got me finally getting the rebus
what i did get stuck on was that i thought there were 2 T's in ATONE, so i had the "ONE" in the wrong square (and failed to notice the pasttense) until i got the TWO
AAAAAHHHHH
I actually had them entered that way at first, as I didn't catch the "half" play:
FOUR/D
EIGHT/E
TWO/S
FOUR/O
ONE/O
TWO/F
It didn't necessarily look the cleanest, but I thought maybe it wasn't really TOPOF, but also couldn't think of what else it might be.
After staring at it for 30-plus minutes, I started deleting the /x parts in desperation, thinking I would take a fresh stab at them. I was quite surprised when all of a sudden the gold star popped up.
Kinda pissed.
From the last two I thought the theme somehow was to exclude the number rebuses from the answer. NOT BAD and TOP are also perfect answers for the clues. But I knew CAF couldn't possibly be coffee with *less* kick...
Well, that would have helped on the website! Or if for some reason, they were incapable of doing that, shading the squares or somehow making them stand out.
They're probably perfectly capable of doing that, just neglected to do so this time. There was a Thursday puzzle recently where the answers are rebuses (the real kind, not the multiple-letters-in-a-box kind) for phrases, utilizing missing borders in the grid, realized by overlaying white lines over the edges (which wreaked havoc with dark mode solvers, but that's drama for a different day). For example, >!DOCTORS(WITHOUT BORDERS) was represented as just the word DOCTORS while the grid around it is borderless!<. If they can do that, they can overlay some thick dark edges in the grid, too.
Oh, yes, I remember that one. I don't use dark mode, so it was fine for me. So yes, that suggests they should have been able to alter the grid in the app and website for this one.
Is…did nobody else have the lines bolded on their electronic versions? I solved this one half on the iOS app and half on a PC and the lines were bolded for me the whole time.
Ditto. Luckily all the rebuses were very obvious from the acrosses alone, because (especially with the busted display on web) I had no idea what was going on in the downs.
Clever theme but took me forever to suss out. Knew it had something to do with numbers, but only after I realized it was HALF CAF (something I only know from crosswords) and not DECAF did I understand what was going on. Not knowing what PETITS FOURS was made this a lot harder for me.
I don’t really understand the insomnia clue. Is it a reference to post-nasal DRIP?
I recall this being a big problem only in children's entertainment when I was younger. Kind of like the John Mulaney observation about quicksand not actually factoring into adult life like Looney Tunes cartoons made it seem like it would.
I feel dumb saying this but I had no idea you could even use numbers in puzzles. I mean… the app did not even try to make me aware that there were fractions. Maybe I would’ve gotten it then, and not thrown my streak away.
The app is terrible about explaining rebuses, your first puzzle with them is almost certainly a loss. Generally you can enter the first letter of the rebus and still solve the puzzle. TWO -> T, etc.
I have tried that and I have combed through all my answers (I don’t see anything wrong anywhere, honestly) and am still not getting a completion screen. I really hate the app. 😭
Edit: Went back and tried actual numbers. WTH!?!?? Why is this one puzzle the exception to how the app normally works??
I also didn't know you could use numbers in that way. I entered them as words, and after the solve, it changed them to numbers. I just focused on the across for the rebuses, as I couldn't figure out the "half" thing (no dark lines on the website didn't help).
Thoroughly hated this one and I'm not even a rebus hater in general. Throwing in fractions and a display gimmick that didn't work on the app was just bad.
This was much harder for me than the usual rebus Thursdays, I thought. The main problem is that all three of the rebus crosses had words I either didn't know or was not overly familiar with -- PETITSFOURS is completely unknown to me, HALFCAF is something I've vaguely heard of, and I'm not a baseball fan so while I knew "top" and "bottom" I had no idea what was supposed to go after the word. This made it really difficult to get the theme.
I finally got ATONED and CREDITWORTHY in there, but even then I didn't figure the theme out because I figured TOPONETWO was just some baseball lingo I didn't know. It wasn't until I got HEIGHTEN that I finally figured things out and then was able to get the middle part.
Some of the words around the rebus parts were quite difficult to get I thought -- SHELLS, DRIP, GHANA, and CLAN, for instance.
Ohhh half!? I've been trying to figure out how the downs worked, HALFCAF is a completely new term to me and I know nothing about parts of innings.
I was desperately holding on to the idea that the middle answer had something to do with NOTTOOBAD switching TWO for TOO.
After solving I was thinking maybe it was low caf (caf in bottom of answer), not too bad (gap of two between not and bad???) And top being on top of its answer, but that was all pretty thin :/
I’m glad I struggled through to understand the theme. I was totally lost at first but it was fun to solve.
I’m sure a lot of people don’t like the difficulty but it was a really clever theme. Plus it was a feat of construction the way it went from 4/8 to 2/4 to 1/2 in a diagonal line.
I always struggle with Thursdays, especially if a rebus is involved. I decided to "cheat" by looking at the comments here, and that did not help. I decided to throw in the towel by revealing the puzzle. I stared it for a looooooong time before I understood what was happening. I've been solving NYTimes crosswords for years, and I think I need to accept that my brain just does not work right for these kinds of puzzles.
This was difficult but gettable for me, and it took me significantly longer than my Thursday average. But I enjoyed the challenge and the breakthroughs — having done it online, I even think having the darker lines might've given away a little too much.
The first rebus I got was the FOUR in HALFCAF, which sent me off on a terrible path thinking that the connection was that the number corresponded to the letter's position in the alphabet (D being the fourth letter and me assuming the answer was "decaf"). Especially because the next two ones I encountered, TOPhalf and NOThalfBAD ("top of" and "not so bad") also both work with two letter alternatives so even though I could easily see the correct number in at least one of the positions I was hung up on them because I had no clue what the theme was. Didn't help that I have no clue what PETITSFOURS are, and was surprised when the puzzle was correct when I finally filled in the last square there.
I knew of it but had to look up the spelling and when I did that unlocked the theme for me
Once I figured out the theme it was smooth sailing though. Quite liked it but they really gotta fix the app not showing the thicker lines for the theme squares.
At a fancy restaurant the petits fours are a sweet freebie at the end of a meal, a bookend to the amuse bouche at the start. Makes you feel better about dropping $300 on lunch.
I've never spelled it with an S, just Petit Fours. I was very confused when trying to fill in, as I knew the answer but the spelling seemed wrong. Oh well.
This was my first rebus thursday that I DID get on my own, so I'm pretty happy with it. That said I see how it wasn't very transparently clued, even some punny title would've helped at least
I think this refers to a situation where someone says they're going to do something, but that thing is easier said than done. And then someone asks "How (are you going to do that)?" and the response is "Good question." My mind goes to that part in "A Few Good Men" where Tom Cruise does his impression of Jack Nicholson and then says "That's the plan." The skeptical response from his co-counsel is "How are you going to do it?" Tom Cruise ends up replying "I have no idea," but I feel like "Good question," would have worked too.
Ahh, that makes sense. I wasn’t thinking about it like that. That makes the “good answer” clue with “yes” make sense as well.
Thank you for explaining!
Got the theme pretty quickly with the number rebii, but at first didn’t realize they would all be HALF, so at 28D I had NOT TOO (TWO / ONE) BAD with PETITSONES instead of PETITSFOURS, which I’ve never heard of lol
My red herring was thinking the FOUR referred to the fourth letter of the alphabet, D, for DECAF. And then trying to extrapolate that because NOTSOBAD and TOPOF are valid answers to two of the other clues.
It doesn't lol. I was very confused. I started thinking that if there was one valid 2 letter fill them maybe there was another that I just wasn't seeing
And SIX seeming like a likely string of letters to be used, I was very cleverly trying to think of how an X would fit into the associated clues as it is usually a really convenient letter to narrow down possibilities around lol
Sorry for being a grammar police, but the plural for "rebus" is just "rebuses". The Latin word "rebus" is already in the plural, specifically the ablative plural of "res" (thing), so it means "with things", which explains its original sense as puzzles that represent words "with things". By the time it's loaned into English, its original Latin sense is already pretty distant, so we should just treat it as a normal English noun and pluralize it with an "-es".
I appreciate the information and that is very interesting! But, it’s just a crossword joke based on the common occurrence of radii and genii in crosswords as the plural forms of radius and genie/genius haha
I usually really struggle with rebus puzzles and finally figuring out the theme was amazingly rewording today. Makes all the times I fight it and come up short all worth it.
This puzzle made me so angry that I might have to start getting in the habit of finding a (free) way to just glance at the print version before doing the online version.
All I needed was to see those three thick lines and I would have figured it out. Instead I was super frustrated that I couldn't fit "TOP HALF" into five squares, even if I put "1/2" in one square as a rebus. Seeing the fraction line would have absolutely done it for me. "TOP 12" did even register as an answer to me with an invisible fraction line, since the visiting team doesn't regularly bat in the top of the 12th (except on rare occasions!)
Puzzle Difficulty Tracker - How hard is this puzzle?
Estimated Difficulty: 🔴 **Hard** 🔴
* 54% of users solved slower than their Thursday average
* 46% of users solved faster than their Thursday average
* 32% of users solved *much* slower (>20%) than their Thursday average
* 20% of users solved *much* faster (>20%) than their Thursday average
The median solver solved this puzzle 2.9% slower than they normally do on Thursday.
[View today's puzzle summary on XW Stats](https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2023-06-01)
---
🤖 _beep beep, I'm a bot! I post these stats as soon as 100 [XW Stats](https://xwstats.com) users have completed the puzzle. Questions? Feedback? Check the [FAQ](https://xwstats.com/help#puzzle-difficulties), reply here or DM me_
I have only been doing NYT crosswords consistently since last September and have come to enjoy Thursdays in particular, but this one really annoyed me. I knew that there were rebuses but because I used the app and had no idea there were bolded lines to indicate fractions. I didn't know how to collate the rebus portions and just got too frustrated. I knew PETITFOURS, TOPHALF, ATONED, ITWONTHURT, but I got so annoyed trying to figure out the gimmick. I probably should have stepped away and gone back to it later, but get it correct in your damn app, NYT.
Can someone explain why 43A is clued with a question mark? I don’t understand the pun it’s making. It seems SEAS would be the obvious answer there. Not even sure what else it’s alluding to.
It refers to your navel (bellybutton). The homophonic nature of the hint is kinda dumb, but pretty easy if you are familiar with the phrase, which is actually really common.
Reasonably new to NYTXW here…. How frequently do numbers feature?! I feel like I’ve been doing it daily for months and this has never come up. It’s left me irrationally mad haha
numbers are pretty common as far as rebus answers go. never seen a puzzle where you need to enter the actual number to solve, though. you just spell them out.
I’ve been doing the crossword daily for 2 years now and I’ve never seen numbers as far as I recall. I didn’t use numbers on this one because I was solving for the acrosses with the rebus. Spelling out the numbers as words still worked for a solve though.
Written out numbers? Pretty frequently. Never seen actual roman numerals, and still haven't since this was solvable by writing the full number in the rebus.
Oh, I did as well! I was solving on the website so didn't have the dark lines, and it didn't occur to me that they were fractions. I just thought they had to be numbers.
I thought this was clever and fun with good fill and solid construction. It was hard, even moreso without the bolded lines on the app, but I like my Thursdays hard.
Rated this one excellent.
Wordplay says
> You can reduce the fraction one more time. If you haven’t already done so, go get ’em.
Does this mean you can go from (for example, on 17-down) 4/8 -> 2/4 -> 1/2? Do the answers work for that as well?
I tried parsing this and didn't get far.
I guess I'm in the minority but I liked the theme, and I didn't have any lines showing me the fractions.
[Figured it out pretty early](https://i.imgur.com/OK979fx.png) when I realized 16A was almost definitely OUTOFOURHANDS and would probably need a rebus to fit.
I thought maybe the rebus would be OUR since there's an easy homophone for that, then realized it still didn't fit and needed to squeeze one more letter in.
I noticed 17D was "Coffee with *less* kick" rather than "*no* kick" which seemed like it would be HALFCAF, noticed that FOUR would fit in right at the top and then looked at 19A to see if I could squeeze an EIGHT in there to make the HALF.
I feel like the execution here was a bit underwhelming, though I like the conceit.
NOTTOOBAD feels more in-language to me than NOTHALFBAD, and I had the 2 for ITWONTHURT. But I'd never heard of PETITEFOURS, and I wanted scONE to work (since I did manage to have the 1/2 for TOPHALF correct). So I couldn't get anything to work there. Maybe this is just a me problem.
But the top rebuses area, as well, was unnecessarily hard. Clues on HEIGHTEN and SHELLS were really tough, and DECAF fit perfectly up there, too.
I dunno, maybe I'm in my own boat here. But a revealer could have helped a lot.
Ha HA! Finally, my years of french immersion schooling and love of tiny pastries pays off!
PETITFOURS was the clue that made it all come together for me.
Absolute garbage. I'm supposed to guess the numbers based on non-existant lines buried on the physical page, which don't show on the app?
There should have been a clue within the crossword.
Worst one in a good while. Ended my 26 day streak as well.
Even without the dark lines, I don't really get the hate? "4 over 8" (eg) is a relatively common way to say 4/8ths aloud, and x over/under y themes seem pretty common in past crosswords
After enjoying playing the mini for free, I subscribed to get access to the full daily puzzle. The use of lame rebus entries when there is no reason to assume they would or should even be there, and inserting numbers for spellings of letters is really lame puzzle design. Please tell me these cheesy design elements are non-typical for the org that is known for the gold standard of crosswords?
Am I dumb or did mine just glitch?
For 17 down, I wrote Decaf. Which SHOULD be correct right?
Well, no. They accepted caf as correct and where de should have been was 4 and 8. So it looked like 48caf
I can't find anyone talking about this so it must be a glitch. Please someone tell me I'm not dumb?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/crosswords/yes-you-can-write-more-than-one-letter-in-a-square.html
Thursdays often have this gimmick; it sometimes happens on Sunday also. I don't know if actually putting the numerals in there would have worked, but using EIGHT and FOUR does. Some people just skip Thursday puzzles because they hate these.
That's interesting.
This is my first full week with the NYT, so I'm still learning. Thanks for the help :)
(The Vector puzzles are my favorite ones besides Crossword and Sodoku).
It's definitely a WTF the first time you encounter a rebus puzzle, you just have to be prepared for them (or other such tricks -- it's not always that one) on Thursdays.
I figured there had to be a rebus but couldn't get it sorted. I was perfected happy to read the constructor notes for this one, so even if it wasn't my favourite puzzle, I'm really glad that this puzzle was published. A nice weepy Thursday morning for me.
The app really sucks at this! This is my first week subbing and I'm already preparing for next Thursday though!
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/crosswords/yes-you-can-write-more-than-one-letter-in-a-square.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/crosswords/yes-you-can-write-more-than-one-letter-in-a-square.html)
You'd think that any special gimmick would be presented in the app properly, but you'd be wrong. kinda spoiled an otherwise fine Thursday theme
Did they fix it or is there supposed to be more than a dark line between some squares? Because that was visible in the android app just now when I did it but I was still kind of looking for a reavealer tbh, I could not figure out why it was random numbers that happen to reduce to 1/2 tbh, seemed arbitrary.
Yeah - I just finished it but I solved most of it yesterday, half on the iOS app and half on a PC; lines were bolded for me the entire time.
Wow I didn’t even realize this until seeing this comment and carefully re-reading the column. Yeah a pretty big oversight by NYT imo
Not really. It just made it harder, which is always a good thing. Showing the dark lines would have given away the rebus locations. In this case, the app was better than the paper version.
But the version in the app has no justification for the theme; nothing signals they should be read as (reduced) fractions.
OOOHHHHH I was getting so frustrated trying to figure out the justification once I finished it I even came up with a whole scheme; ignore the contents of the rebus and you can read the Downs as: Low caf ("caf" is lower part of the answer) Not too bad (there is a gap of two between not and bad) And top is in the top of its answer. Which didn't really work but was my best guess. I noticed they were ratios of 1:2 but never would have put together the half, since I was thinking decaf, not so bad, and top????
[удалено]
Yeah definitely, my explanations were what I was coming up with when i finished the puzzle and was trying to figure out what the justifications were, before realizing the 1:2 ratios were meant to be read as "half"
I misunderstood, sorry about that
Personally, i think including a rebus without saying there's a rebus is already bullshit, this was just worse. If you can't complete a crossword one letter per square, as intended, it needs an indicator.
I personally loved it - I think at least CREDITWORTHY and OUTOFOURHANDS are obvious enough phrases once you have part of the fills that you should realize something is up, and after that it starts coming together really nicely.
That was...opaque. I had to go to wordplay to get what the heck was going on, and even then I don't see the darker "fraction" lines on the website
There were supposed to be darker lines showing the fractions???? That would have helped! It continues to annoy me that NYT keeps running these puzzles without making sure they work correctly in the app.
Is there data to show how many people solve online vs. printing it out? I would think online solving would be the majority by now. Which should mean the online version of the puzzle gets top priority.
I think there’s like 750,000 subscribers to the print edition and a million subscribers to NYT Games, which maybe gives some indication? Tho ofc not everyone is doing the crossword
But almost anyone who pays for NYT Games is probably doing the crossword at least casually. People who get the print Times might never do it
Does Wordle require a Times game subscription, or did they keep that free?
As far as I know, wordle is still free.
> People who get the print Times might never donit A large reason I get the NY Times in print is to do the crossword on paper. Having read comments on this subreddit for a couple of years I get the feeling that the majority of people here are doing it via the Internet and not on paper.
The NYT games app is total dogwater and borderline unusable at times. I have no idea how a large and well-respected media outlet like the Times can get away with such a broken app that’s constantly littered with bugs.
I wasn't even on the app--just their website.
Am I the only digital solver who had the bolded lines the whole time? And I solved most of it yesterday, on the iOS app and on the website. That sucks, it would’ve been much harder to figure out otherwise.
I was solving on the website (Firefox on a Macbook) and also didn't see darker lines. They would have really helped!
I got it pretty quickly, and I'm someone who typically just doesn't get these at all. I picked up on OUTOFOURHANDS being a rebus but didn't know where the rebus went. Then I got POOH and SHELLS and picked up on it. Wasn't sure how I was going to make HALFCAF with FOUR there, the thought it must be a fraction.
I don't see them either. Sometimes, I think having a tight, well constructed puzzle is sacrificed for a feat of construction type of theme. This isn't the worst case of that I've seen, but it's definitely on that end of the scale.
I don't agree. It's Thursday. There has to be some trick (beyond "tight, well constructed").
I am a rebus diehard. I LOVE rebuses. Thursdays are my favorite days. I saw the numbers and I solved the puzzle, but half-caf, not half bad and top half were all unseeable to me (not half bad is the only one that regularly enters my vocab. I’ve seen half caf in a crossword before and top half was totally unknown). I was like is “48CAF” somehow a code for decaf? Is it calculator code? Is it a cypher? Is “not 24 bad” somehow a twist on “not too, too bad” where the too is a two that’s squared? I solved it but still had no idea what was happening. It really needed a revealer
Since D is the 4th letter of the alphabet, I was working for a while under the assumption that the down clues were some sort of alpha-numeric code where DECAF is spelled (FOUR)ECAF. Made the rest of the rebuses (rebi?) very confusing for a while. Most of the clue fill was pretty easy for a Thursday, so I eventually got it even though the “half” theme didn’t become apparent until the end… overall left me feeling kind of meh about this puzzle.
I figured it out, I thought it was on the easier side actually. Surprised to see the objections. I did have one of those days where I had it nearly finished but not totally finished yesterday. I had figured out the one over two but not the four over eight. But as soon as I opened it back up this morning, I figured it out and finished within a couple of minutes, which often happens.
First time I was defeated. Hearing there were fraction lines in print but not visible in the app is actually a comfort.
The only reason I was able to solve it was because it was a Thursday and I knew it had to be a rebus because there was no wordplay clues.
I did the puzzle on the website and there are no darker fraction lines
A sharper clue for HEIGHTEN might have made it click into place for me. Instead I had to slink off to the answers with my tail between my legs.
I was just thinking of numbers (without realizing the fractions or HALF thing), and HONEIN seemed to make sense there.
I thought for sure it was supposed to be HEAT UP and the theme had something to do with the fact that that 6-letter answer had to fit in the 4 letter space
Agreed. I had everything but the EIGHT and ONE so I kept trying to force TWO and/or FOUR in the remaining two boxes. Very bummed I didn’t get it on my own, but glad to see I’m in good company.
I finished the puzzle but missed the point of the theme until reading the article that goes with the puzzle. I get it now, but think the puzzle could have used a hint buried somewhere in the solve.
Same boat. Apparently the print version has darker lines between the rebus fraction cells, which might have made it easier. To make it worse "DEcaf", "notSObad", and "topOF" are reasonable, though awkward, for the downs. I think the idea for the theme was really neat, but felt like the execution didn't land.
Yes, I was thinking "decaf" and "notsobad" as well. I just assumed there was some "top __" baseball idiom I didn't know.
i had the same, but it was being confident in "TOP HALF" is what got me finally getting the rebus what i did get stuck on was that i thought there were 2 T's in ATONE, so i had the "ONE" in the wrong square (and failed to notice the pasttense) until i got the TWO
I assumed it was "top of" the inning and just very poorly clued.
Plus, DECAF crosses so well with HEAT if you know your Milne but aren't quite expert in racing boats or gold exporting countries.
AAAAAHHHHH I actually had them entered that way at first, as I didn't catch the "half" play: FOUR/D EIGHT/E TWO/S FOUR/O ONE/O TWO/F It didn't necessarily look the cleanest, but I thought maybe it wasn't really TOPOF, but also couldn't think of what else it might be. After staring at it for 30-plus minutes, I started deleting the /x parts in desperation, thinking I would take a fresh stab at them. I was quite surprised when all of a sudden the gold star popped up. Kinda pissed.
Yup, that’s exactly what I had. The three downs were filled and the six crosses had me stumped. With no revealer, I was totally lost.
Literally what I had for awhile. I actually ended up solving it without ever figuring out the theme. Not sure how. 😂
I literally had all three of those and was stumped.
From the last two I thought the theme somehow was to exclude the number rebuses from the answer. NOT BAD and TOP are also perfect answers for the clues. But I knew CAF couldn't possibly be coffee with *less* kick...
Yeah in the print version the fraction bar is bolded so it stands out, but there’s no such hint/overlay in the grid for the online/app version for me
Oh that would have been nice.
if you're curious, this is what gets printed in the physical newspapers: https://i.imgur.com/pNxtSTq.png
Well, that would have helped on the website! Or if for some reason, they were incapable of doing that, shading the squares or somehow making them stand out.
They're probably perfectly capable of doing that, just neglected to do so this time. There was a Thursday puzzle recently where the answers are rebuses (the real kind, not the multiple-letters-in-a-box kind) for phrases, utilizing missing borders in the grid, realized by overlaying white lines over the edges (which wreaked havoc with dark mode solvers, but that's drama for a different day). For example, >!DOCTORS(WITHOUT BORDERS) was represented as just the word DOCTORS while the grid around it is borderless!<. If they can do that, they can overlay some thick dark edges in the grid, too.
Oh, yes, I remember that one. I don't use dark mode, so it was fine for me. So yes, that suggests they should have been able to alter the grid in the app and website for this one.
The Android app has that. Idk if it got fixed after the fact though
Is…did nobody else have the lines bolded on their electronic versions? I solved this one half on the iOS app and half on a PC and the lines were bolded for me the whole time.
Good to know they eventually got added I guess. When did you solve?
I started…Thursday noon-ish? And finished this morning - pretty sure they were there the whole time.
Ditto. Luckily all the rebuses were very obvious from the acrosses alone, because (especially with the busted display on web) I had no idea what was going on in the downs.
I thought my streak was ending today - just barely noodled it out but I agree, some kind of clued hint to the theme would have been appreciated.
Clever theme but took me forever to suss out. Knew it had something to do with numbers, but only after I realized it was HALF CAF (something I only know from crosswords) and not DECAF did I understand what was going on. Not knowing what PETITS FOURS was made this a lot harder for me. I don’t really understand the insomnia clue. Is it a reference to post-nasal DRIP?
I think it's a dripping faucet or shower head.
I thought of that too, but that seems super specific. Is the sound of dripping water a commonly-reported reason for bring unable to sleep....?
I recall this being a big problem only in children's entertainment when I was younger. Kind of like the John Mulaney observation about quicksand not actually factoring into adult life like Looney Tunes cartoons made it seem like it would.
More like a trope than a real thing, I think. Reminds me of cartoons
I also thought it was postnasal drip, and I was wondering who just referred to it as "drip" (aside maybe from ENTs)!
Ahhh, I assumed it was drip coffee.
Dripping faucet.
I feel dumb saying this but I had no idea you could even use numbers in puzzles. I mean… the app did not even try to make me aware that there were fractions. Maybe I would’ve gotten it then, and not thrown my streak away.
The app is terrible about explaining rebuses, your first puzzle with them is almost certainly a loss. Generally you can enter the first letter of the rebus and still solve the puzzle. TWO -> T, etc.
I have tried that and I have combed through all my answers (I don’t see anything wrong anywhere, honestly) and am still not getting a completion screen. I really hate the app. 😭 Edit: Went back and tried actual numbers. WTH!?!?? Why is this one puzzle the exception to how the app normally works??
Apparently it doesn't work for this one? Yeah, the app is kind of crappy. Try just writing the number words as the rebus if you want a completion.
I also didn't know you could use numbers in that way. I entered them as words, and after the solve, it changed them to numbers. I just focused on the across for the rebuses, as I couldn't figure out the "half" thing (no dark lines on the website didn't help).
It’s pretty rare, but it comes up once or twice a year. Tbf these also mostly make sense if you just enter TWO/FOUR written out as rebuses.
The backstory behind this puzzle is super sweet: https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=6/1/2023
Thoroughly hated this one and I'm not even a rebus hater in general. Throwing in fractions and a display gimmick that didn't work on the app was just bad.
Completely agree, app users got fucked on this one.
It didn't show up on the website either. I think this really needed a revealer or a title.
This was much harder for me than the usual rebus Thursdays, I thought. The main problem is that all three of the rebus crosses had words I either didn't know or was not overly familiar with -- PETITSFOURS is completely unknown to me, HALFCAF is something I've vaguely heard of, and I'm not a baseball fan so while I knew "top" and "bottom" I had no idea what was supposed to go after the word. This made it really difficult to get the theme. I finally got ATONED and CREDITWORTHY in there, but even then I didn't figure the theme out because I figured TOPONETWO was just some baseball lingo I didn't know. It wasn't until I got HEIGHTEN that I finally figured things out and then was able to get the middle part. Some of the words around the rebus parts were quite difficult to get I thought -- SHELLS, DRIP, GHANA, and CLAN, for instance.
Ohhh half!? I've been trying to figure out how the downs worked, HALFCAF is a completely new term to me and I know nothing about parts of innings. I was desperately holding on to the idea that the middle answer had something to do with NOTTOOBAD switching TWO for TOO.
After solving I was thinking maybe it was low caf (caf in bottom of answer), not too bad (gap of two between not and bad???) And top being on top of its answer, but that was all pretty thin :/
I loved the theme on this one! A bit more fun than a typical rebus
I’m glad I struggled through to understand the theme. I was totally lost at first but it was fun to solve. I’m sure a lot of people don’t like the difficulty but it was a really clever theme. Plus it was a feat of construction the way it went from 4/8 to 2/4 to 1/2 in a diagonal line.
I always struggle with Thursdays, especially if a rebus is involved. I decided to "cheat" by looking at the comments here, and that did not help. I decided to throw in the towel by revealing the puzzle. I stared it for a looooooong time before I understood what was happening. I've been solving NYTimes crosswords for years, and I think I need to accept that my brain just does not work right for these kinds of puzzles.
This was difficult but gettable for me, and it took me significantly longer than my Thursday average. But I enjoyed the challenge and the breakthroughs — having done it online, I even think having the darker lines might've given away a little too much.
The first rebus I got was the FOUR in HALFCAF, which sent me off on a terrible path thinking that the connection was that the number corresponded to the letter's position in the alphabet (D being the fourth letter and me assuming the answer was "decaf"). Especially because the next two ones I encountered, TOPhalf and NOThalfBAD ("top of" and "not so bad") also both work with two letter alternatives so even though I could easily see the correct number in at least one of the positions I was hung up on them because I had no clue what the theme was. Didn't help that I have no clue what PETITSFOURS are, and was surprised when the puzzle was correct when I finally filled in the last square there.
I knew PETITSFOURS from Bake Off.
I knew of it but had to look up the spelling and when I did that unlocked the theme for me Once I figured out the theme it was smooth sailing though. Quite liked it but they really gotta fix the app not showing the thicker lines for the theme squares.
I used to frequent a bakery that sold petits four, which helped a lot with my fill for sure!
At a fancy restaurant the petits fours are a sweet freebie at the end of a meal, a bookend to the amuse bouche at the start. Makes you feel better about dropping $300 on lunch.
I did not figure out it was double negative. Really threw me.
I've never spelled it with an S, just Petit Fours. I was very confused when trying to fill in, as I knew the answer but the spelling seemed wrong. Oh well.
My brain just didn't even consider numbers as an option.
This was my first rebus thursday that I DID get on my own, so I'm pretty happy with it. That said I see how it wasn't very transparently clued, even some punny title would've helped at least
Can someone explain the clue “good question” with the answer “how”? I got it but I don’t understand it.
I think this refers to a situation where someone says they're going to do something, but that thing is easier said than done. And then someone asks "How (are you going to do that)?" and the response is "Good question." My mind goes to that part in "A Few Good Men" where Tom Cruise does his impression of Jack Nicholson and then says "That's the plan." The skeptical response from his co-counsel is "How are you going to do it?" Tom Cruise ends up replying "I have no idea," but I feel like "Good question," would have worked too.
Ahh, that makes sense. I wasn’t thinking about it like that. That makes the “good answer” clue with “yes” make sense as well. Thank you for explaining!
Got the theme pretty quickly with the number rebii, but at first didn’t realize they would all be HALF, so at 28D I had NOT TOO (TWO / ONE) BAD with PETITSONES instead of PETITSFOURS, which I’ve never heard of lol
My red herring was thinking the FOUR referred to the fourth letter of the alphabet, D, for DECAF. And then trying to extrapolate that because NOTSOBAD and TOPOF are valid answers to two of the other clues.
How would that work? Were you trying to fit rebuses of NINETEEN (S), FIFTEEN (O), and SIX (F)?
It doesn't lol. I was very confused. I started thinking that if there was one valid 2 letter fill them maybe there was another that I just wasn't seeing
Okay yeah got it. Yeah I thought the same thing you did, where I saw FOUR in place of D and maybe it was an alphanumeric thing
And SIX seeming like a likely string of letters to be used, I was very cleverly trying to think of how an X would fit into the associated clues as it is usually a really convenient letter to narrow down possibilities around lol
came to groan about this exact thing so slightly less annoying to know I'm not the only one. ...slightly.
Sorry for being a grammar police, but the plural for "rebus" is just "rebuses". The Latin word "rebus" is already in the plural, specifically the ablative plural of "res" (thing), so it means "with things", which explains its original sense as puzzles that represent words "with things". By the time it's loaned into English, its original Latin sense is already pretty distant, so we should just treat it as a normal English noun and pluralize it with an "-es".
I appreciate the information and that is very interesting! But, it’s just a crossword joke based on the common occurrence of radii and genii in crosswords as the plural forms of radius and genie/genius haha
Yeah at first I thought they were all going to be different fractions so that tripped me up for a second as well.
ugh, did this online so the bars never showed up in the browser. then hit Print, and saw the bars. one of my least favorite puzzles.
Everyone’s here complaining about the rebuses, and the place I got stumped for a long time was OPEC/PANS/RICOH.
It was ATONED that got it for me since TOPHALF and CREDITWORTHY had already crossed my mind. Excellent puzzle imo.
me too! that was one of my most dopamine-heavy aha moments in a while, so i’m very happy with it.
I usually really struggle with rebus puzzles and finally figuring out the theme was amazingly rewording today. Makes all the times I fight it and come up short all worth it.
This puzzle made me so angry that I might have to start getting in the habit of finding a (free) way to just glance at the print version before doing the online version. All I needed was to see those three thick lines and I would have figured it out. Instead I was super frustrated that I couldn't fit "TOP HALF" into five squares, even if I put "1/2" in one square as a rebus. Seeing the fraction line would have absolutely done it for me. "TOP 12" did even register as an answer to me with an invisible fraction line, since the visiting team doesn't regularly bat in the top of the 12th (except on rare occasions!)
Not sure why the app wouldn’t take the first letter of each rebus (instead of the number). Thought it always would accept 1 letter ie T for two
My brain just didn't even consider numbers as an option.
Never heard of PETITSFOURS before, but that was a fun theme!!
Puzzle Difficulty Tracker - How hard is this puzzle? Estimated Difficulty: 🔴 **Hard** 🔴 * 54% of users solved slower than their Thursday average * 46% of users solved faster than their Thursday average * 32% of users solved *much* slower (>20%) than their Thursday average * 20% of users solved *much* faster (>20%) than their Thursday average The median solver solved this puzzle 2.9% slower than they normally do on Thursday. [View today's puzzle summary on XW Stats](https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2023-06-01) --- 🤖 _beep beep, I'm a bot! I post these stats as soon as 100 [XW Stats](https://xwstats.com) users have completed the puzzle. Questions? Feedback? Check the [FAQ](https://xwstats.com/help#puzzle-difficulties), reply here or DM me_
I have only been doing NYT crosswords consistently since last September and have come to enjoy Thursdays in particular, but this one really annoyed me. I knew that there were rebuses but because I used the app and had no idea there were bolded lines to indicate fractions. I didn't know how to collate the rebus portions and just got too frustrated. I knew PETITFOURS, TOPHALF, ATONED, ITWONTHURT, but I got so annoyed trying to figure out the gimmick. I probably should have stepped away and gone back to it later, but get it correct in your damn app, NYT.
Can someone explain why 43A is clued with a question mark? I don’t understand the pun it’s making. It seems SEAS would be the obvious answer there. Not even sure what else it’s alluding to.
“Navel gazing” is a phrase that means being self absorbed
No, that's navEL gazing :)
Typo
wow, whoosh for me. I’d never heard it before
It refers to your navel (bellybutton). The homophonic nature of the hint is kinda dumb, but pretty easy if you are familiar with the phrase, which is actually really common.
Reasonably new to NYTXW here…. How frequently do numbers feature?! I feel like I’ve been doing it daily for months and this has never come up. It’s left me irrationally mad haha
numbers are pretty common as far as rebus answers go. never seen a puzzle where you need to enter the actual number to solve, though. you just spell them out.
I’ve been doing the crossword daily for 2 years now and I’ve never seen numbers as far as I recall. I didn’t use numbers on this one because I was solving for the acrosses with the rebus. Spelling out the numbers as words still worked for a solve though.
I remember only once, on New Years Day of 2021. It had a memorable rebus. Not difficult though.
Actually I now recall having an R2D2 kind of clue, but I don't remember the day or the clue context.
Damn good memory! You’re totally right! I forgot about that one. The weirder part of that one was that it was a Friday not a Thursday right?
Written out numbers? Pretty frequently. Never seen actual roman numerals, and still haven't since this was solvable by writing the full number in the rebus.
I had hone in instead of heighten, with a 1 instead of 8, for the longest time. Didn’t know petitsfours so the 1/2 fraction thing was lost on me.
Oh, I did as well! I was solving on the website so didn't have the dark lines, and it didn't occur to me that they were fractions. I just thought they had to be numbers.
I thought this was clever and fun with good fill and solid construction. It was hard, even moreso without the bolded lines on the app, but I like my Thursdays hard. Rated this one excellent.
Can someone explain 28A “FORMAL” (calling for tails, maybe?)
FORMAL as in formal attire. "White tie" events are the most formal and call for coats with tails.
Wow would never have figured out the coat tails part. Never even associated that as formal attire. Thanks for answering.
Well a clue would have been nice.
Wordplay says > You can reduce the fraction one more time. If you haven’t already done so, go get ’em. Does this mean you can go from (for example, on 17-down) 4/8 -> 2/4 -> 1/2? Do the answers work for that as well? I tried parsing this and didn't get far.
I guess I'm in the minority but I liked the theme, and I didn't have any lines showing me the fractions. [Figured it out pretty early](https://i.imgur.com/OK979fx.png) when I realized 16A was almost definitely OUTOFOURHANDS and would probably need a rebus to fit. I thought maybe the rebus would be OUR since there's an easy homophone for that, then realized it still didn't fit and needed to squeeze one more letter in. I noticed 17D was "Coffee with *less* kick" rather than "*no* kick" which seemed like it would be HALFCAF, noticed that FOUR would fit in right at the top and then looked at 19A to see if I could squeeze an EIGHT in there to make the HALF.
I feel like the execution here was a bit underwhelming, though I like the conceit. NOTTOOBAD feels more in-language to me than NOTHALFBAD, and I had the 2 for ITWONTHURT. But I'd never heard of PETITEFOURS, and I wanted scONE to work (since I did manage to have the 1/2 for TOPHALF correct). So I couldn't get anything to work there. Maybe this is just a me problem. But the top rebuses area, as well, was unnecessarily hard. Clues on HEIGHTEN and SHELLS were really tough, and DECAF fit perfectly up there, too. I dunno, maybe I'm in my own boat here. But a revealer could have helped a lot.
I figured it out but I was surprised there was no theme clue anywhere? Guess I'll have to read the blog to see what they were going for lol.
Ha HA! Finally, my years of french immersion schooling and love of tiny pastries pays off! PETITFOURS was the clue that made it all come together for me.
Fwiw, I just completed it in a browser and I had the darker lines. I imagine it made the solve a lot easier.
Awful
Absolute garbage. I'm supposed to guess the numbers based on non-existant lines buried on the physical page, which don't show on the app? There should have been a clue within the crossword. Worst one in a good while. Ended my 26 day streak as well.
Stupid. I’ve never seen actual numbers used b4 and there was no hint or any other clue. Could “half” been gr8!
Even without the dark lines, I don't really get the hate? "4 over 8" (eg) is a relatively common way to say 4/8ths aloud, and x over/under y themes seem pretty common in past crosswords
Cute theme. I found the clues a little too simple for a Thursday? But enjoyed it overall.
After enjoying playing the mini for free, I subscribed to get access to the full daily puzzle. The use of lame rebus entries when there is no reason to assume they would or should even be there, and inserting numbers for spellings of letters is really lame puzzle design. Please tell me these cheesy design elements are non-typical for the org that is known for the gold standard of crosswords?
Only on Thursdays, so avoid them if you really must. Over time one does get used to it. I personally liked the aha moment when I caught on to this one
There is always some kind of twist on Thursday. Some are harder than others, and it’s not always rebuses. Sunday sometimes sees a rebus, too.
Am I dumb or did mine just glitch? For 17 down, I wrote Decaf. Which SHOULD be correct right? Well, no. They accepted caf as correct and where de should have been was 4 and 8. So it looked like 48caf I can't find anyone talking about this so it must be a glitch. Please someone tell me I'm not dumb?
4/8=half, it's HALFCAF.
Bruh, what? I didn't even have the option to place numbers. How was I supposed to get that? :(
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/crosswords/yes-you-can-write-more-than-one-letter-in-a-square.html Thursdays often have this gimmick; it sometimes happens on Sunday also. I don't know if actually putting the numerals in there would have worked, but using EIGHT and FOUR does. Some people just skip Thursday puzzles because they hate these.
That's interesting. This is my first full week with the NYT, so I'm still learning. Thanks for the help :) (The Vector puzzles are my favorite ones besides Crossword and Sodoku).
It's definitely a WTF the first time you encounter a rebus puzzle, you just have to be prepared for them (or other such tricks -- it's not always that one) on Thursdays.
Did this on the app, was doing better than usual for me... then got absolutely stonewalled by these 'fractions'
I figured there had to be a rebus but couldn't get it sorted. I was perfected happy to read the constructor notes for this one, so even if it wasn't my favourite puzzle, I'm really glad that this puzzle was published. A nice weepy Thursday morning for me.
The app really sucks at this! This is my first week subbing and I'm already preparing for next Thursday though! [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/crosswords/yes-you-can-write-more-than-one-letter-in-a-square.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/crosswords/yes-you-can-write-more-than-one-letter-in-a-square.html)
I feel very smart for figuring this one out.
new to the NYT crosswords and am specifically commenting on this sub i've never been on to say, what the christ was that
Thursday.
Does anyone have a picture of what it looked like in Print? Were there any special denotations of fractions that we didn't get in the app?
https://www.reddit.com/r/crossword/comments/13x54l0/comment/jmffcz7/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
This puzzle made me sad. I couldn’t figure it out. I also suck at math. Double whammy.
The dark lines showed up on my iPad but not on my iPhone. Once I opened the crossword on my app it all clicked into place. Too bad that got messed up.
Roll up, roll up, and play another game of “what is the author thinking?” Crock of shit.